


"You fear me, I feel."

by Reusar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Dark Magic, M/M, Manipulative Tom Riddle, Morally Grey Harry Potter, Sane Tom Riddle, Time Travelling Harry Potter, Tom Riddle is Not Voldemort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:07:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23697484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reusar/pseuds/Reusar
Summary: Alternate Universe - Time Travel"I heard you speak of no one."It is then that Riddle's breath is apparent against his own."Yes," he says."That no one is you."
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	1. Landing

“My friends have told me of your adventures — little did they know the true extent of your exploits.”

Harry does not so much accept this as he rejects it outright.

“What do you mean?”

“I heard,” Tom says, “That you were not only stealing money, but also swindling the owners.”

“I-”

Lestrange cuts in then, a smile having crept upon his face,

“Rest assured we do not care for the morale of such things.”

Harry looks to the ground, then, attempting to the best of his ability to escape from an otherwise unkind situation.

A situation he had caused.

For the sake of his own skin — exploits of time had no place in the matters of post-battle Harry — the very idea did not stir within him any conscience that it may betray him, and even then he found he simply did not care enough for it.

“I am merely worried,” escapes him before he can retract it.

“Hogwarts may be my only chance at a normal life.”

It might be that this self-preservation, out sharply against the hand’s outline, some work as unsightly and pathetic as were, on that day, his own impressions — at which it pleased the Slytherins to hear him say.

“We won’t speak of it.”

“Well…”

Harry would look up, but he is scared of him — of Tom Riddle, and he should not be the one to tell.

“Thank you.”

It is then he realises that he himself does not realise the full severity of his being here… for the entirety of his aforementioned exploits he had done out of sheer desperation — to leave this place, this time, forever.

And when he sees Tom close his eyes and nod to the rhythm of the train, he finds he cannot do either.


	2. Solace

Mayhap it had been the racing of his mind, or his absolute lack of thought, but the turnout was… more than expected.

No matter what thoughts intruded, one stands stark, not wishing to penetrate the others yet doing also, giving to him a sense of dread.

But this dread, furthered still by the memories that resurface at the sight of the Great Hall , in all weathers — enduring and fickle — finds itself more ‘cause’ than ‘effect’.

Such effect he is glad to be free of.

“Jones, Harry.”

And when the Sorting Hat is atop his head, aforementioned dread, already held captive in some inferior being, escapes through the mind, giving Harry some final peace.

He has delivered it: they have overcome death and returned to their shared life.

“SLYTHERIN!”

And so it is with his own fate— 

“Jones,” Malfoy asks, “Are you not hungry?”

His own fate, that he himself does make.

“Oh, I am.”

Such past worries were and still are by the privacy of himself, gateways to true causes for concern — that he was now stranded in a time, land, he did not belong to, in which such implications have already festered.

First: the primacy of returning to the nineties. In honesty, he had no idea how he would go about doing this, a labour in vain to attempt: all the efforts of his intellect may prove futile.

“Harry,” interrupts his musings. “You’re in my bed.”

“Oh, okay— I mean, I understand. Sorry.”

Silently he gets out of bed and finds another.

Time had elapsed during which nothing of the Hogwarts Battle, save what was attached to his sanity and the grey magic that accompanied it, had any existence for him. 

Those years — those sluiceways — threaten to enclose him at every moment.

He allows it to, sometimes.

And at once the life’s shortcomings become tragedy, its disasters amplified, its transparency, an illusion — this feeling overwhelming; or rather this feeling is not part of him, but himself.

“No!!”

Time stops.

Nobody seems to have heard him.

They could be sound asleep: they could also be pretending.

Wait, but — no matter.

If he could, he would find solace in his past.

‘It does not do well to dwell on dreams.’

He wishes to curse at the owner of that voice.

‘Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love.’

Nothing could describe how much he hated those words.

‘I am already dead,’ he wants to say. ‘And if what it means to live is to live with love, then I would rather die again.’

Nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to give feedback, as this is a work in progress, and I may change chapters accordingly.


End file.
